The Student’s Soliloquy (with thanks to William Shakespeare)

By Nils S., Cohasset, MA

Image Credit: Nalani F., Montclair, NJ

To study or not to study - that is the question: Whether ’tis smarter of the mind to struggle Against the continuous stream of outrageous assignments, Or to disremember the sea of homework, And, by forgetting, fail. To study, to stress - No more - and by stopping to work we end, The headache and the thousand irritating questions That school is heir to - ’tisn’t a consummation Devoutly to be wished. To study, to stress - To stress, perchance to agonize. Ay, there’s the rub, For in those hours of stress, what relief may come, When we haven’t shuffled off our mortal frustration, Vacation gives us pause. There’s the time, Which students so constantly yearn for. For who would bear the whips and scorns of school, The biology teacher’s intensive, the English teacher’s taxing, The pangs of despised chemistry, the year’s droning delay, The exhaustion of history, and the spurns That patient merit which the French class takes, When the student himself might his quietus make, With a relaxing nap? Who would students bear, To grunt and sweat under a demanding school day, But that the dread of something after high school, The formidable country from whose bourn, Contented travelers return, tempts the mind. And makes us rather bear those tasks we have Than risk those other options we know not of. Thus the dream of college does make workers of us all; And thus the native hue of independence, Is hanging o’er the burning desire of freedom, And students of great ambition and resolve, With this hope, fuel their dreams, And study for the following day’s test. Soft you now! The fair prospect! Alma Mater, in thy horizon Be all my college dreams granted.